


dying is what we do

by scribblscrabbl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-The Empty Hearse, and really just more mycroft, five times fic, john copes, mycroft is his unofficial therapist, there really should be more john/mycroft bromance in this world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblscrabbl/pseuds/scribblscrabbl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Mycroft and John actually met up for fish and chips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dying is what we do

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this brilliant prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129694214) at sherlockbbc-fic.

1\. 

He doesn’t really know what he expected to see turning the corner on his way to the pub on a Friday afternoon, but it most definitely was not Mycroft Holmes.

They really look nothing alike. The hair, the nose, the mouth, none of it would’ve turned his head if he had stuck to his newly acquired habit of not paying attention. But for whatever reason, he pays attention today.

“Mycroft.” He halts before they run into each other. A passerby jostles his shoulder. “What a coincidence.”

Mycroft’s face is inscrutable as always, and he finds it gives him a perverse sort of comfort. And there, that’s another difference. However sociopathic, psychopathic, and downright mad Sherlock is—was, John saw him _react_ to the world, loudly and colorfully. Mycroft, though, seems to only vacillate between vaguely amused and vaguely peeved. 

“Hello, John. Lovely day for a stroll.”

He blinks. They both have a knack of saying entirely unpredictable things, however.

“And do you—stroll, often? Around these parts? I didn’t think you get out much.”

“Once in a while I like to reacquaint myself with how the commonwealth lives.”

“Right. Well,” he fidgets and looks around, “I’m heading to the pub for a bite if you’d like to join me.”

He offers because he’s sure Mycroft will decline. It’s not that they don’t have common ground, no; he’d be lying if he said they didn’t, even without cases to solve and a country to save (at least, he no longer had that). He reckons Mycroft would sooner jump off a cliff than do something so utterly normal as to have lunch with him at a pub.

Except he’s wrong, and he imagines he should be used to that by now.

“That’s something _people_ do, I suppose,” Mycroft says, voice colored with painful resignation, and motions to John to lead the way.

“Okay. Okay, then.” He wouldn’t go so far as to think Mycroft is lonely, but he’s halfway there.

2\. 

The next Friday he has the distinct feeling he’s being followed as he walks past St. Mary’s, and, sure enough, there’s a sleek, black car beside him when he turns, moving at a snail’s pace. He narrows his eyes. Then the door swings open. Anthea greets him while typing methodically on her phone, as if nothing’s changed and he’s still the ex-soldier who chases taxicabs through London in an unconscious effort to try to find his place in the world.

He climbs in and wonders if it’s the same car every time and if it ever stops smelling new.

The driver brings him to the same pub. When he walks in Mycroft’s already there, sitting at the same table. They don’t speak until John orders his fish and chips.

“Are the police,” he clears his throat, “are they any closer to clearing his name?”

“Your Detective Inspector Lestrade would speak to that better than I.”

“He’s not my—I haven’t phoned him. Not since.” He takes a deep breath through his nose. He doesn’t say that Greg’s phoned him, every day at the start, and then more and more infrequently as the weeks have passed. 

“Sherlock had grown fond of him,” Mycroft says, quite matter-of-factly.

John laughs involuntarily, and feels his mouth stretch oddly around the sound. _He’d die before admitting it,_ and isn’t that the truth.

“He—Greg—he said once, Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day, if we’re lucky, he might even be a good one.”

“How very touching. An uninspired, foolishly romantic distinction, useless in every sense of the word. But what do I know.” Mycroft smiles briefly. “Sherlock might have appreciated the thought. He did have a heart, despite his, rather transparent, attempts to disprove the fact.”

Mycroft makes it sound like the fatal flaw but John knows that, if faced with the choice, he would have it beating.

3.

Mycroft doesn’t make small talk. He certainly doesn’t _chat_. But he imagines that’s not really what he and John are doing. The majority of the time, John eats his fish and chips, Mycroft thinks, and they do it in silence. Unfortunately, the rest of the pub is offensively, unfailingly loud. He’s never seen the appeal of drinking establishments; the smells alone are enough to turn his stomach. Yet here he is, for the third time in three weeks no less, cultivating a reputation as a frequenter of pubs. If Sherlock found out, he’d never hear the end of it. 

The matter of why he’s here is still under consideration. He’s always liked John, insofar as he’s ever taken a _liking_ to a person. John’s character is admirable, though ill-suited to human evolution—brave, sincere, and loyal to a fault. He’s no more remarkable than the rest of the 99%, a simple deduction, but Mycroft imagines there was something his little brother hadn’t foreseen. Just as war had changed John, John’s changed Sherlock in ways from which he’ll never recover. And perhaps that alone is reason enough for Mycroft to keep the doctor close.

“I’ve moved out.” John hasn’t touched his food yet. “Got my own place now.”

“So you have.”

John frowns, still failing, it seems, to understand that Mycroft will always be innumerable steps ahead of him. Then again, he never did inspire high hopes.

“You don’t have to keep tabs on me, you know. I won’t hang myself with my own belt or whatever you’re afraid I might do.”

“On the contrary. I think you’re doing just fine.” It takes Mycroft approximately five seconds when they first meet to evaluate John’s mental state. He’s not concerned by what he sees, nor is he surprised. Love, despite all of its disadvantages, suits John Watson well.

4.

He’s not escorted this time round, mostly at his insistence. Not that he hasn’t gotten used to Mycroft’s unconventional methods by now, but it’ll never stop being creepy, climbing into a silent, black car with tinted windows, like he’ll be whacked the minute the door closes and his body dumped efficiently into the Thames (with no Sherlock to track down his killer). 

It’s gotten to the point where he structures his Fridays around their meetings, more diligently than he’s structured anything around his appointments with Ella, though he doesn’t make a habit of comparing Mycroft to his therapist. In fact, he’s seen Mycroft more regularly than he’s seen anyone else in the last month, which is nothing short of bizarre. But it seems it’s the one hour of his week when the racket that’s taken up shop in his head leaves him be, maybe because Mycroft never expects anything from him and only speaks when spoken to. For that one hour, he remembers what it’s like to feel normal, and he doesn’t bother to consider what that says about him.

“You’ve never had fish and chips in your life, have you?” It’s a wild guess, not a deduction, but he reckons it’s spot on anyway.

“Heavens, no, why would I.” Mycroft looks genuinely bewildered.

“Not even as a kid?” 

“We were very _selective_ with our food. Unless Sherlock was up to one of his experiments.”

“Precocious, was he?”

“Hardly. Pirate, remember?”

He does remember. It’s the only thing he knows about Sherlock’s childhood, and he doesn’t even really _know_ , does he, because its secondhand information. He doesn’t know if Sherlock had a dog, or goldfish, if he’d been painfully short in primary school, when he had his first smoke, or his middle name, because he never offered and John never asked. He’d imagined that he had a lifetime to get around to it.

5\. 

“I’ve met someone.”

“I take it that’s supposed to mean something to me.”

“I’m just telling you. People tell each other things when they meet over fish and chips.”

It’s only partly true. He’s gotten comfortable around Mycroft, to the point where he doesn’t feel compelled to think things over before he speaks, although he never thought the day would come when he’d be inclined to update him on his love life. But it is supposed to mean something, multiple things really, but one thing in particular he’s struggling to articulate.

“No, I believe what you’re doing is trying to tell me you no longer need me around without hurting my _feelings_ ,” Mycroft says, as if the idea alone might contaminate him. “It’s about time you found a replacement for Sherlock. I was beginning to think I should worry.”

“She’s not a _replacement_ , she has nothing to do with Sherlock. In fact, she might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He doesn’t say what he resents most is the implication that Sherlock is replaceable.

“Life goes on, as they say. I’ve grown fond of our little chats.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I think I might even miss them.”

“No, you won’t.” 

Mycroft only smiles, and John’s never seen him look so ordinary. 

“You know, he always said that if this story had a hero, then it would be you.”

John expected them to shake hands and go their separate ways. He didn’t expect this.

“He said that. Sherlock said that.” He always did enjoy having the last word. Death, it seems, only made it harder, not impossible.

“Does it surprise you?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and as the sentiment echoes, stirring up the ashes, he thinks, just this once, for old times’ sake.


End file.
